Order and reason, beauty and benevolence, are characteristics and conceptions which we find solely associated with the mind of man.
Statistics is the grammar of science.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Statistics provides the foundational language and framework for understanding scientific data.
The quote by Karl Pearson underscores the importance of statistics in the realm of science, implying that just as grammar is crucial for the construction of meaningful sentences, statistics is essential for interpreting and communicating scientific findings. Without a solid grasp of statistical principles, scientific inquiry and understanding become muddled, as data needs to be analyzed and presented using a systematic approach to derive meaningful conclusions.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about scientific methods, one might quote Pearson to emphasize the importance of statistical analysis in research.
More from Karl Pearson
All quotes βIf I have put the case of science at all correctly, the reader will have recognised that modern science does much more than demand that it shall be left in undisturbed possession of what the theologian and metaphysician please to term its 'legitimate field'. It claims that the whole range of phenomena, mental as well as physical-the entire universe-is its field. It asserts that the scientific method is the sole gateway to the whole region of knowledge.
All great scientists have, in a certain sense, been great artists; the man with no imagination may collect facts, but he cannot make great discoveries.
The classification of facts and the formation of absolute judgments upon the basis of this classification-judgments independent of the idiosyncrasies of the individual mind-essentially sum up the aim and method of modern science. The scientific man has above all things to strive at self-elimination in his judgments, to provide an argument which is as true for each individual mind as for his own.
That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.
The scientific method of examining facts is not peculiar to one class of phenomena and to one class of workers; it is applicable to social as well as to physical problems, and we must carefully guard ourselves against supposing that the scientific frame of mind is a peculiarity of the professional scientist.
Similar quotes
Isolated facts and experiments have in themselves no value, however great their number may be. They only become valuable in a theoretical or practical point of view when they make us acquainted with the law of a series of uniformly recurring phenomena, or, it may be, only give a negative result showing an incompleteness in our knowledge of such a law, till then held to be perfect.
The belief is growing on me that the disease is communicated by the bite of the mosquito... She always injects a small quantity of fluid with her bite - what if the parasites get into the system in this manner.
Observations indicate that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. It will expand forever, getting emptier and darker. Although the universe doesnβt have an end, it had a beginning in the Big Bang. One might ask what is before that but the answer is that there is nowhere before the Big Bang just as there is nowhere south of the South Pole.
[T]here are depths of thousands of miles which are hidden from our inquiry. The only tidings we have from those unfathomable regions are by means of volcanoes, those burning mountains that seem to discharge their materials from the lowest abysses of the earth.
Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science. I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do. You've got to have standards.
The recent developments in cosmology strongly suggest that the universe may be the ultimate free lunch.